Stirrups were unknown in ancient times and horsemen had to hold the horse's mane to avoid falling off. Cavalrymen of antiquity used their spears to mount a horse hoisting themselves aloft as in pole-vaulting.

Although no inventor of the stirrup is recorded, and some primitive form of a rope stirrup originated probably from the horsemen of the steppes, by the third century AD metallurgical advances allowed the Chinese to cast perfect metal stirrups.

Mongol tribesmen brought the stirrup to Europe and in the year 580 a military manual of the Byzantine emperor for the first time mentions the need for stirrups.